Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Things I Like Tuesday - Christmas Decorating Edition

It's been a while since I've done my regular Things I Like Tuesday post! So I thought what better time to start it than with Christmas stuff?

Remember how I said I was behind on decorating for Christmas? Well, 4 days before Christmas I finally caught up! So here are a few of my favorite things...

1. 
The tree. Of course! Our tree is a grand ol' hodge podge of ornaments we made when we were kids, ornaments made for us like my Grandma's snowflakes, ornaments we've given each other like the annual sports ones I buy for Tim, and so on. I love it! I grew up with a tree that just showed the personalities of all of us, and I love how we've carried on that tradition. No perfect ornament placement, just doing our best to show who we are!








Dad & I went to see Home Alone together. That Christmas he gave me a turtle dove and kept one for himself. It was one of the most precious gifts he's ever given to me and I love it & the concept behind it so much. It's a very treasured gift!



2. 
A Merry Christmas set of blocks mom gave me several years ago. I move it around each year. This year it adorns our living room TV stand and I love being able to look at it every night!


3.
Here's the glass manger scene I mentioned that my Grandma gave to me. This moves around each year too. This year it's on our living room corner table/catalog/book stand.


4.
A pine cone basket, our received Christmas cards basket, and a vase of fake poinsettas on the top of our china cabinet in the dining room.


5.
Our dining room table centerpieces first {pretend you don't see the stuff off to the sides...we're still sorting through our Christmas presents and stuff!}, then our kitchen table centerpiece which was an item I grew up with that mom passed on to me. 



6.
I love adding little bits and pieces of Christmas cheer everywhere throughout the house! It helps brighten up our spirits a bit and I smile when I see each piece. 

These little cute bears adorn a couple of spots on our picture wall at the end of our hallway.
A cute little item I was given as a gift several years ago adorns our picture wall in our bedroom.
A few Christmas candles {that are just decoration, I don't light these} decorate the top of my dresser. In the background on this one you can see a framed picture and poem written by my cousin for my Grandma's funeral three years ago.
This turned out blurry but it's a mini-nativity on top of the second bedroom dresser.
This cute little thing I picked up at a Ben Franklin craft store a couple years ago adorns the microwave stand in our kitchen.
A Christmasy spoon rest I picked up at Big Lots on Black Friday this year.... Note to self, next time clean off the stovetop before taking a picture and sharing with the world!
And last but not least, these cute bears I have no recollection of where I got them from, adorn one of our side shelves in the living room.

Since it took me so long to get my decorations up, I'm not about to take them down yet! We've actually been known to keep our Christmas decorations out through the month of January even when we do get it up in time. What's another month tripping over ourselves, lol? Seriously though, we enjoy it and don't see the need to rush to put it all away again.


How about you - do you put your decorations away right away? What cool stuff have you put around your house?

3 comments:

roxiept said...

Rochelle, did Grandma tell you how she came to get that glass nativity set (if it is the one I think it is)? Whenever we drive through Karnak, I can't help but remember...

Allen and I love showing off Southern IL and we were so happy to take Grandma and Grandpa around. The harder part for us was to find places that wouldn't wear out Grandma too much. One place we thought of was Section 8 cause it wasn't a real long walk and it was on a boardwalk so we thought she could handle that ok.

To get there we drove through Karnak. Guess what! GARAGE SALE! We stopped and Grandma looked at this little glass nativity set. She really liked it but she put it down and looked at a bunch of different stuff. Then she eyed it again but decided not to get it. So we headed down the road to Section 8, took our walk and headed back to our place.

Heading back we again drove through Karnak. Allen asked Grandma if she wanted to stop, she thought about it but said no. We drove on through town. We get out of town and Allen asked her again if she was sure as it would be no problem to go back and get it. Mom said yes so Allen turned around.

Well, about this time Grandpa became aware of us turning around and asked what we were doing. (He should have been using his hearing aid) We told him we were going back to the garage sale. When we got back to the place with the nativity set, Grandpa made the purchase as he didn't want Grandma getting out of the car to see what else she would change her mind about.

Thanks for mentioning the nativity set. I love that memory of them.

Kimberly said...

I love your tree! We have a hodgepodge of ornaments that we have collected through the years too, but this year I was too lazy to pull everything out. So, I just used new ornaments that I had bought. Enjoyed seeing your Christmas cheer throughout your house:) I'm not taking mine down yet either. I got it up kind of late too.

Rochelle said...

No Aunt Roxie, I don't remember hearing that! Oh how neat! I can totally picture all of that too :) :) Thank you for sharing that sweet story with me!

Kimberly, thank you. I always appreciate that you appreciate the little things on my blog. :) Sometimes I'm just not sure what to share but I love that someone likes it! I just don't like only blogging about Fibro, it bores me, my life is more than my Fibro, ya know?